ella

d inside a mausoleum. The heavy silence in Maria Herrera's study was absolute, broken

his title of Don like a tailored suit-impeccable and commanding on the streets of our territory

e, devoted matriarch. "Giovanni," she whispered, her voice trembling with manufactured tears. "The finances... Sophia's union

profit, and right now, he was weighing the wrath of the Elder against th

erns for our treasury are valid. We are prepared to offer Isabella a respectable dowry, though it cannot m

the room plummete

nding," she repeated, the word dripping with lethal softness. "You offer the Russo family your scraps, Giovanni? You stand

color draining from his che

oug

come from Maria.

efine my worth today, I would enter the Russo family as a beggar, a pathet

heir finances on my behalf," I said, my voice steady

ctly. "My biological mother, Carina Sterling, established a trust fund upon

-pitched sound. "Isabella, don

to silence her, "is managed solely by her brother, my

and ruthlessness as a legal advisor and Sterling family r

welve storefronts in Little Italy, and three woodlands upstate. According to the legal documents, thes

mouth, her eyes wide with terror as her years-long scheme to embezzle my inheritan

for years as if I had just grown a second head. The realization that I possessed

Herrera's react

e was a sharp, calculating gleam. She was no longer looking at a burdensome obligation or a pawn. She was looking at a weal

ching her lips. She shifted her gaze to the trembling cou

speak, but Maria raised a s

commanded. "I